


Future Considerations

by shihadchick



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, bros just bros being bros, light D/s vibes, slump busting for fun and profit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:22:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22800034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: "So I think you should pick up a dude," Luc said, like that was easy and normal and also a thing you could just say to one of your teammates without any warning.
Relationships: Josh Anderson/Pierre-Luc Dubois
Comments: 8
Kudos: 111





	Future Considerations

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Kassie for looking this over!
> 
> Once again, set in a world where half the team is not already on IR, sigh. Have some get well soon porn, CBJ.

"So, I have an idea," Luc said, and Josh sighed and said, "What?" expecting something about playing Mario or French rap or maybe even pranking Boone, which was always fun even though you knew you'd pay for it later. Boone was more creative than people expected, sometimes.

"Slump busting," Luc said, and Josh tried to simultaneously tense up and to slide down in his seat with the aim of hiding under the table, hopefully. The problem with hanging out in the players lounge after practice was there was absolutely nowhere to hide from nosy friends-slash-occasional lineys.

"I don't think banging a smoking-hot girl is going to help me score again," Josh said.

"Well yeah, or it would've worked by now anyway," Luc said with a careless shrug.

Josh raised an eyebrow.

He hadn't actually gone home with anyone in a while, but he wasn't going to argue if Luc was giving him props for being able to pick up at will. It wasn't like they didn't all get attention when they were out; you could go a long way to a good first impression for a hook-up just by being young and built and mostly okay in the face department—depending on how recently they'd run into rogue pucks, of course. And thank god Wenny was off the market and not ruining it for the rest of them. But he just hadn't met anyone he was interested in doing more than a little flirting with for a while.

Maybe he was getting picky in his old age, or something.

"And?" Josh said, when Luc didn't actually go on. "This better not involve eating something super gross or whatever, because I'm not gonna."

He probably would have, actually, if there was any guarantee it would work, but Josh was mostly not superstitious and he didn't think that food was lucky or unlucky. Except in terms of stuff like food poisoning, and god, that was the nightmare right there, wasn't it? He was, however, just superstitious enough to not want to dwell on that thought for too long.

"So I think you should pick up a dude," Luc said, like that was easy and normal and also a thing you could just say to one of your teammates without any warning.

Josh dropped his phone.

"I don't think that's, like, PC, bud," Josh said, extremely calmly, while his brain screamed car-chase police sirens, and started trying to figure out if he could somehow set off the smoke detector in there with the power of his mind. It had to be possible, right?

"It worked for my buddy in Cape Breton," Luc said earnestly, and Josh started wondering darkly why Savy had let him move out if he didn't have a solid grasp of the facts of life already.

"He… might've just wanted to bone a dude, PL," Josh said, very carefully. "Like, I'm just saying, you know?" He doesn't want to actually say the words 'you're not gonna get it up if you don't wanna bang them' but he was thinking them very loudly. Luc was practically telepathic on the ice, maybe it'd work. And then Josh could get out of this conversation with an ounce of dignity. Maybe.

"Whoops, no, I do not need to be here," Zach said, loudly and absolutely monotone from the other side of the room, and then the door slammed shut behind him.

Josh settled for trying to slide further under the table and hoped his face wasn't beet red, and also that Zach would have the human decency to stay in front of the door and stop anyone else from walking in on them. He hadn't even heard the door open in the first place, for fuckssake.

"Well, yeah, he likes both," Luc said easily, and Josh was only a couple years older than him, there was no way kids in Juniors had gotten that much cooler with it already, surely? "But, you know, hockey."

Josh did know.

"Anyway, I'm not saying you need to go pick up a _random_ dude," Luc said, and he pressed the toe of his stupid expensive sneakers against Josh's calf pointedly. "Just, it's on the table, if you want."

Josh blinked, gaped, swallowed air and then nearly fell flat on his face trying to sit up again in a hurry when his own dumb expensive sneakers that Luc had talked him into buying which had fuck-all grip on the sole slid on the carpet and pitched him forward.

"Excuse me?"

Josh wasn't sure if he was falling at Luc's feet or trying to run away. Honestly, it could've gone either way.

Luc gave him a grin that was warmer than it was cocky, confident and assured beyond his years, but still just shaky enough around the edges that Josh could see where he was coiled tight with tension. Josh was fucking doomed, a terrible influence, and extremely into it.

"Soooo, you wanna?" Luc said, letting it dangle explicitly, his rough-and-tumble husky voice promising things that Josh should not at all be thinking about. Definitely not thinking about in public, or in semi-private, or in fact in front of other people full stop.

"How are you like this?" Josh asked, and Luc's face fell for a microsecond before he sat up straighter, visibly resettling himself as Josh blurted out, helplessly, "I meant that in a good way!"

"Oh," Luc said, and then after a moment. "You're so bad at this. Is this why you never get laid?"

"I get laid!" Josh protested, and couldn't actually maintain eye contact long enough to lie convincingly about how recently that had been. He just hadn't met anyone he clicked with in a while, that was all. At least, that's what he'd been telling himself. 

"Not sure I believe you," Luc said, and Josh licked his lips and swallowed hard and seized the moment by climbing into Luc's lap anyway.

If the way his arms immediately went around Josh to make sure he couldn't tip backwards was any indication, Luc had been expecting that. Josh was probably okay with being a little predictable, in this specific instance.

"You want me to prove it?" Josh asked, feeling his breath start to come a little faster, his face flushing, his skin going too hot and tight. He ground down against Luc, could feel where he was getting hard, felt himself following suit. "I dunno, I think you're into this."

"Oh, maybe you do know what you're doing, then," Luc said, and his hands were on Josh's ass now, and he sure knew what he was doing and there was absolutely no way to walk that back as anything other than what it was.

Josh really hoped Zach was in fact out in the hall blocking the door, but also hopefully unable to hear anything _through_ it.

Fuck, they had to be insane to even be doing that much.

"Maybe we should, uh, go somewhere else," Josh said, sliding a hand under Luc's shirt and running his fingertips over the span of his abs. Luc was big enough that Josh was pretty sure he could actually make a solid attempt at shoving him around if he wanted to, and not a lot of guys could say that. And Josh really wanted him to try.

Now that he'd let himself even start to consider that, the idea of it went right past appealing and skidded to a stop on necessary, needed; a bone-deep craving. He wanted Luc, wanted Luc to hold him down, to touch him, to push him; to make him confront his limits and remember how to step forward and take it further.

And they really couldn't do that there.

Josh let himself rub against Luc one last time, trying to engrave the sensation into the greedy roiling mass of need that was apparently taking over his subconscious, putting it somewhere he wouldn't be able to forget later.

"We can't do this here," he said, and his voice sounded kind of wrecked, tense and desperate, looking down at Luc, a steady island in a sea of uncertainty. "Fuck, Luc, come on."

"Mixed messages," Luc protested, but he was on his feet a second later when Josh climbed out of his lap reluctantly, and headed for the door.

"Take me home and do this properly," Josh said after a moment. "I'm not—not _here_ , that's all."

"Fuck, yeah, okay," Luc said, his eyes widening, and Josh thought, for just a second—had Luc doubted that Josh wasn't going to go for this? Like Josh would leave him hanging.

* * *

If Zach had been by the door still, he heard them coming fast enough to abandon his post: the hall was completely deserted when Josh shoved the door open, shoulders back and ready to bull his way through whatever amount of fast-talking was required to get from point A to point B.

"We can take my car," Luc said, and that was probably smart, Josh was jittery as hell, now that he'd given himself a taste of everything he'd been denying until now, and that didn't make for safe driving. Josh was distracted enough to not even give Luc the most minor of chirps about his ridiculous car either, and that was probably a first, but he didn't question it, just drove them carefully from the arena back to his apartment.

Josh stared out the window and tried to calm his thoughts. This was—certifiably nuts, and still, they were doing it. He was doing it. He was going to let Luc do whatever sounded good and he was going to enjoy every second of it, and who knew what, if anything, it would do for his game, fuck that, maybe it was just an excuse, the only one he'd let himself have, but he just—wanted this.

Luc was quiet as they parked, as they walked up to his apartment, and as he let them in.

Josh was on edge, uncertain enough that he was unable to quite get his balance, and he wasn't sure if he was expecting Luc to jump him the second they were in the door or to just lean in and yell "psych!" But then again, Luc could be a dumbass sometimes, but he wasn't cruel, and he was more than smart enough to know that this wasn't the kind of thing to play pranks about. Josh knew that and he believed that, but the sick slosh of fear in his stomach was still there, not entirely willing to take the risk.

"You can, like, back out at any point," Luc said, after they'd both kicked off their shoes and Luc had locked up behind them, slinging his coat over the back of a wooden sideboard and throwing his scarf on top.

Josh's heart was going double-time.

"That's cool," he said, "but I don't think I'll need to."

"Oh good," Luc said, and gave him a brilliant, relieved smile. "But, you know. If you do, it's fine. Just say something."

"You asking for my safe word?" Josh asked bluntly, eyebrow raised.

Luc colored, his face going pink and Josh felt his eyes widen without meaning to; that was not the reaction he was expecting to get. Luc got flustered sometimes, sure, but not like this. Not in a way that was so inherently sexual, that made Josh helplessly imagine how red he'd be all over, how good it would feel to have Luc pressed against him, all hot and bothered. Josh looked down real quick and could see enough to know that Luc was turned on still, half-chubbed up, and without entirely meaning to Josh let himself fill in those gaps, as well; let himself imagine Luc's dick standing up eagerly, the head poking wetly between his fingers, as red as his face.

Josh made a choked noise and pressed the heel of his palm against his own dick. Fuck, they hadn't even gotten their hands on each other yet, Josh's imagination needed to fucking cool it.

"Yeah," Luc said, soft but firm, and then he cleared his throat and repeated, "Yeah."

"Hot cakes," Josh said, and snuck a quick look at Luc's face, which wasn't giving away anything.

"Your safe word is… your breakfast order when we get McDonalds?" Luc's face was calm, cool, almost still, but his eyes were smiling, humor sparking in them.

Josh knocked his shoulder into Luc's and huffed. "What happened to 'drive thru and we never speak of this again'?"

"I think we're about to have bigger secrets," Luc said, the tiniest of grins playing around his mouth, and fuck, Josh was so into him, this was the worst and also amazing, all at the same time.

"Anyway," Josh said in a hurry, "It was meant to be hot sauce but that was kind of, uh, it didn't work out."

He didn't need to tell Luc that whole story; he could probably guess most of it anyway, and maybe they'd laugh about that later, if things went well. And if they didn't go well, then Luc didn't need to know who else Josh'd slept with anyway.

"What's yours?" Josh added. He didn't think they'd be getting close to anyone's limits right then, but it was better to know up front.

"Rouge," Luc said promptly, and off Josh's eyebrow raise added, "Fuck off, you know that much French."

"I guess it's traditional," Josh said, and then they were out of things to talk about, and it felt awkward, for the first time. Creepingly, cringingly awkward, and Josh didn't know how to handle that, so he thought fuck it, and just hurled himself at Luc again.

At least if they were making out they didn't have to talk, and if Luc would just kiss him back—he did—then Josh's brain could short out again, and he wouldn't have to think about any of this, he could just go with the flow.

For a spur of the moment, flying by the seat of his pants plan, it was actually working out pretty great.

Luc's mouth was hot and demanding, Josh didn't have to think about anything but kissing him back, and by the time they got deep enough that Josh was ready to shove his hands under Luc's shirt again, it didn't take much thought at all.

"Mmm, no," Luc said, and Josh had a moment of thinking he'd fucked up, misread this all somehow, and then Luc's hands were on his, guiding them behind his back, inexorable, and Josh thought, "Oh, this," and somehow got even more turned on. His whole body felt like it was on fire, burning up for it, he just wanted, and Luc kissed him one more time and gritted out, "Bedroom?"

"Yeah," Josh said, and followed Luc to his room.

He kept his hands behind his back the whole way, just in case.

He wasn't sure if Luc would care, or even notice, but the approving look and shoulder pat that he got as he drifted to a halt by Luc's bed said otherwise. That warmed him through, made him feel like he'd already done things right, was making this good for Luc like it was for him.

"We're gonna get on the bed," Luc said, pushing Josh gently in that direction. "Just gotta get these off you first," and Josh flushed darker red, felt his face get hot. Luc hadn't told him he could move yet, so Josh wasn't real sure how he was supposed to undress and it turned out the answer was that he wasn't, Luc was going to do it for him.

Luc did the bare minimum; rucked up Josh's shirt and pulled it over his head, unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans, tugged them down over his thighs. He ran his fingers along the waistband of Josh's underwear first, teasing, and then tugged them down too, tangled up with his jeans, so that Josh was naked from neck to knees, his hands behind his back still, his legs just as effectively immobilized by the pants caught around his calves.

"Give me your hands?" Luc asked quietly, and Josh reached for him, palms up, waiting for additional instructions.

"Okay," Luc said, "Now get on the bed."

"Uh?" Josh said, glancing down uncertainly, and then back up to Luc. He wasn't sure how he was meant to—not unless Luc was going to let him kick his jeans off, at any rate.

"Lean back," Luc said, and his confidence was intoxicating, contagious. "I've got you," and his hands were on Josh's shoulders, giving him a counter-weight, as Josh shifted back far enough to feel the mattress hit the back of his knees and then sat, shuffling back as best he could, letting Luc take his weight as he leaned back. The sheets were cool and soft against his skin, warming up fast, but Luc's hands felt like they were burning, so hot where they were touching.

Luc climbed on the bed with him, moving in concert, his knee pushing between Josh's thighs for balance, and Josh bit off a gasp and tried to roll his hips, pushing up into him. Luc was solid and warm and there, and he let Josh have a couple delicious seconds of pressure before moving back.

Josh groaned but let himself sag back, telling himself to try to be patient.

"Hands up here," Luc said, guiding Josh's hands up to brush against the headboard, the fabric rough against his knuckles.

"Can I— uh, I mean," Josh started to say, and realized that Luc was waiting for him to finish. He swallowed, started over. "Can I talk?"

Luc's grin was the exact same one he wore on the ice when he was about to do something that usually made the opposing team want to knock him on his ass, and Josh felt shivers run through him at the heat in it, at what it felt like in that context.

"You can make as much noise as you like," Luc said. "I'd say don't move, but I think I can take you anyway," and he leaned in, forearm braced across Josh's shoulder, his lower body pressed up snug against Josh's, and the stiff fabric of his jeans was the sweetest torture where Josh's dick rubbed against it.

The certainty in Luc's voice should have annoyed him, would've gotten him fired up and competitive in almost any other situation, but right then and there it just made Josh shudder with anticipation. Luc's weight felt good on him, pinning him to the mattress, grounding him, and even when he pushed back—testing at first, and then a little more seriously—Luc could take it, was braced over him, had the angle and the leverage. He'd put on muscle since last year, and he hadn't exactly been a string bean then. Josh thought about everything Luc could to do him like that and choked back a groan.

"Please," he panted, "Luc, c'mon."

"I'm getting there," Luc said, and ran his free hand down Josh's chest, thumbnail dragging over the line of his abs, leaving faint pink lines and sparks of sensation. He cupped his palm over Josh's pecs, rubbed at his nipple and hummed appreciation at the way it stiffened at his touch. He didn't go anywhere near Josh's dick, where Josh wanted him most badly to touch, kept skirting the whole area of his groin even as the path of his hands got incrementally closer.

Josh bucked up under his weight again, felt Luc's hand clamp down tight on his wrists and didn't even hide the moan this time, not when he could see the way it made Luc's eyes light up.

"You'll regret it if I come all over you," Josh threatened, mostly not meaning it; it'd be hot but probably not worth the hassle of cleaning up, and besides, if he and Luc were really doing this, he'd rather make a better impression than losing it that fast.

"Mmm, I don't think so," Luc said, and then he rolled off Josh, which was absolutely the last thing Josh had wanted to happen.

"Fuck, I didn't—I wouldn't," he said, staring up at Luc and willing him to see the sincerity in his expression.

Luc leaned in and kissed him fast, biting at his mouth, a fleeting impression of lips and just a little bit of tongue.

"I know, I just gotta lose my pants before it gets dicey," he said, and scrambled to his feet, stripping off at high speed like there was a prize on the line or something.

Josh'd seen Luc naked before, of course; they got undressed in the same room multiple times a day, but he'd never had a chance to really look till then. Not to look his fill, and certainly not to linger. Everyone knows Luc's big, Luc's built; Luc works out hard and it shows. But then Josh got to look at all of him: the hidden shadows of his hip bones, the inside of his elbows, the backs of his knees. The tangle of fair hair under his arms, scattered lightly down his chest, thickening below his navel. The delicate pinks and reds of his dick, pushing up against his stomach, uncut and making Josh's mouth water. Fuck, he wanted to get his hands on him. Wanted Luc to push him around and make him take it.

"Nice," Josh said, trying to be cool about it.

Luc smirked at him, rocked back onto the balls of his feet and made Josh just look at him for a few seconds longer, and it was no hardship, but it'd also been forever since he touched Josh and Josh was low-key going out of his mind with it.

"Okay, so bring it over here then," Josh said, which was technically begging but he was going to pretend like he didn't know that.

"Hey, manners," Luc said, and the cognitive dissonance there was kind of a lot, so Josh rolled his eyes and said, "Please", not particularly sincerely.

"Good enough," Luc said, the first time he'd given away that he was impatient too. He'd been under such tight control that Josh could let himself doubt it, twist in the wind a little, lean into the knife-sharp edge of wondering just how much of this was Luc wanting to push his buttons versus wanting him.

He kissed Josh again, and there was enough heat to it that it made Josh's breath catch.

"Come on," Josh mumbled, squirming under Luc, trying to rub off on him a little by-accident-on-purpose. "Fuck me already."

Luc's teeth caught on Josh's bottom lip, a sharp pinprick, a splinter of pain just on the right side of too much that sent a bolt of hot yearning through him, made his stomach flip and his dick get harder. Oh yeah, they were going to work just fine in bed, Josh thought, and dug his fingernails into the headboard.

"You know what I'm waiting for," Luc said, and Josh joked, "I'm going gray over here," and then shuddered even harder as Luc pulled back to give him a long look, head to toe, his eyes lingering everywhere Josh most wanted him to touch.

"Not seeing any gray here yet, old man," Luc said finally, and ran his thumbnail down Josh's treasure trail, through the hair at his groin and feather-light along the length of his dick. Josh tried to swallow and nearly choked. Luc had hardly touched him and he was so wound up already, his dick twitching at the gentle touch and leaking steadily.

"Please," Josh gasped, desperate. "Please, Luc, c'mon, fuck, please touch me already."

He wasn't sure if it was the please or the fact that he was clearly past any other ability to beg for it, but Luc rewarded him with a grin and the barely-there touch turned into Luc's fist tight around his dick, palm sliding wetly, dragging another hoarse moan out of his throat.

"That's it," Luc mumbled, and leaned in to kiss his way down Josh's neck—he shuddered, ticklish—and over his collarbones, diverting to mouth over his nipples in turn.

Luc's other hand left his wrists but Josh was too far gone now to even think of moving, even though he could; just kept his arms up while Luc touched him all over, while he shifted around and shoved at Josh's knee to make more room between his legs. He tugged the tangled mess of Josh's clothes down further, loose enough that Josh could kick them off, freed up just in time for Luc to curl one arm under Josh's knee, his shoulder tight against his thigh as he raised the stakes, no more teasing as Luc's thumb pressed in to trace tiny circles around Josh's hole, dragging at the rim.

"Fuck, fuck, like that, yeah," Josh said, trying to push up so that he could get some pressure on his dick and down into Luc's hands all at the same time. God, he felt like he was going to explode if he didn't get something soon, it felt like he'd been turned on for hours. He'd been hard since Luc touched him with intent, and knowing Luc was going to follow through—and that he was going to make him wait—had just taken it to even more of a fever-pitch. He was sweating, aching for it, obsessively imagining it even though nothing Luc had done or said made him think that Luc wasn't a heartbeat away from following through and giving it to him anyway. 

"You're so good," Luc said, and Josh glowed a little, felt himself respond like he'd been programmed to do so, the warm flush of satisfaction, of pleasing Luc humming along his veins and promising a little more, a little extra. "You've been so good, are you still—? This is good for you, right?"

"God," Josh said, as Luc stopped moving and looked at him, eyes steady on his face. It was sweet and considerate and totally infuriating. "Yeah, it's good, green, whatever, can you just fuck me already?"

"I guess you've been waiting," Luc said, and Josh muttered "forever" under his breath and then hoped guiltily that Luc hadn't heard that, but Luc was distracted enough, it seemed.

Josh hadn't even seen him put the condom on, but he had, and his hand was slick and so was his dick, and Josh was electrically aware of both those facts in very short order as Luc lay full length over top of him, shoving at his thigh again, both knees, his hips; getting both of them lined up to his exact satisfaction. Luc let the head of his dick rub over Josh's skin, pushing up against his balls, slick and hot and hard, a tremendous tease, and then he guided himself back to Josh's ass and didn't make either of them wait any longer, pushing in slow and steady.

Josh's head tilted back into the pillow as he groaned, and probably his eyes crossed as well, because fuck did Luc feel good in him.

"Oh fuck yeah," Josh said, sinking into the sensation, abruptly done with pushing back and ready to just let Luc take him wherever he was going to.

"No kidding," Luc said, stilling for a second and inhaling deeply, his eyes closed, face tucked into the curve of Josh's shoulder. He was so big and warm and so solidly reassuring that Josh thought, wildly, that this was everything that mattered and everything where it needed to be, and there was no way anything could go wrong when he had Luc here, like this, for him.

"Luc," Josh whined, drawing his name out. Luc didn't move, even though it had to be killing him, too; Josh'd never had much patience at that point in proceedings himself, always more than ready as soon as his partner was. "PL," he tried, and Luc's lips grazed over the line of his collarbone, right where the skin was so thin and delicate. "Jesus Christ, Luc," he blurted out, and started to move his arms—not sure whether he wanted to grab at Luc's hair or his hips or his hands or what—and then caught himself.

He was supposed to wait, that was all this was, that was what Luc wanted.

He'd have sworn Luc's eyes were still shut, but maybe he had some supernatural sense that told him what Luc was doing—or maybe he'd just read the tension in his muscles, the microscopic changes that went along with quick movement and quicker cessation—but he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the side of Josh's throat and said, "That's it," and then, thank god, he started moving.

Josh's hands clenched into fists, his thumbnail catching against the headboard and tearing a little but he didn't care, couldn't do anything but lie there and take it, let Luc push his knees back and lean into him harder, his weight pushing Josh down into the soft mattress, his thrusts pushing him up and along, the sheets scrunching up under his back.

Luc didn't take it easy on him, didn't hold back in the slightest, working hard. His hands were firm on Josh's skin, unyielding, moving with a steadiness that made it even easier for Josh to sink into it, to find the rhythm and let it white out his brain, until all he was conscious of were the waves of sensation, the grounding weight of Luc pinning him down, the way Luc was breathing hard into the crook of his neck.

"Andy, fuck," Luc mumbled, and Josh could feel his lips brush against the cords of his throat as he moved, the stutter of his hips starting to lose the beat as they both got closer. "You're so good, you just—fuck, exactly like this," and Luc's teeth scraped over his skin and Josh's brain put up a 'closed for the day' sign and shorted out.

"I, can I," he managed to ask, desperate, and then Luc somehow got his hand between them and wrapped it around Josh's dick as he said, "Yeah, come on, Josh," and Josh blurted out one last "oh god," and came.

Luc pulled out as Josh went limp underneath him, too tired to even squirm at the sensation, and stripped off the condom, wrapping his hand around his own dick and jacking it fast and tight, holding himself up by what Josh had to figure was the combination of sheer dogged willpower and a show-off worthy demonstration of his core strength. Josh gulped in air, forced himself to keep his eyes open and just stared, what little energy he had leftover all coiling up tight in the middle of his chest; nerves and arousal and need. That had been so good, exactly what he needed, and he hoped—figured, by Luc's quiet confidence—that it was the same for Luc too. But he also wanted to see Luc lose it after all of this, craved it, and Luc didn't let him down.

Luc faltered at last as he started to lose control, shaking apart on top of Josh, come streaking over his hand and over Josh's belly and chest, where he was already filthy, and then Luc mumbled something that was mostly vowels and tipped forward in slow motion, all his weight going onto Josh. He wasn't light, and Josh could take it, but he was also aware both of how overheated they were and how badly they needed to clean up, so after giving Luc a minute or two to catch his breath Josh tilted him carefully to the side and squirmed out from under him, until they were both flat on the bed, sharing a pillow, and only touching at shoulder and hip and ankle.

"So that happened," Josh said a minute or so later, figuring that the moment called for something but kind of lost on the specifics.

"Yep," Luc said, not even cracking an eye open, his hair flat on one side, his nose smushed into the pillow and breathing through his mouth. Josh couldn't believe he was this attracted to him.

"And so we're, uh? What, exactly?"

"Do we have to talk about this right now?" Luc complained and Josh bit back a smile; Luc sounded his actual age for once, and the contrast with the smoothly assertive mood of five minutes ago was almost startling.

"We don't have to," Josh said. "I just want to know if this is a one-time thing, or whatever."

Luc did open his eyes this time, and he reached out to wrap his fingers around Josh's biceps, warm and steady and just the slightest bit possessive.

"It can be a thing if you want it to be," Luc said. "And I don't mean 'if you go out and sink a couple tomorrow then hey, new tradition', just… if you want."

Josh blinked. He hadn't actually thought about his scoring drought since they'd left the rink, the first serious break he'd had from worrying about that for a while. And that probably meant something, too.

"Yeah," Josh said. "I want." He yawned, felt his jaw crack a little, and the temptation to fall asleep on the spot slid from 'in favor' to almost overwhelming. "We should nap now, though."

"And shower after," Luc agreed, and reached over blindly to fist-bump Josh, and it was kind of nice, actually, to find you were at exactly the same level of gross as the guy you were sleeping with. It wasn't going to be fun to clean up later but Josh didn't care enough to do anything about it then and there, and it was kind of a relief to find that Luc seemed to feel the same. It boded well.

"And then after _that_ maybe we can try for a hattie," Josh added, unable to resist the urge, and he just grinned into the pillow as Luc elbowed him in the ribs and muttered, "You're buying me steak and drinks if we're getting that adventurous," and in Josh's mind, that trade was going to be more than worth it.

-the end-


End file.
